News roundup, 3 May 2024

- The Kinew government is going to be holding an expert-led review of the Pallister government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in manitoba, but apparently no judicial inquiry as originally planned. It might seem odd that they would forgo such an opportunity to make the Tories look bad in public, especially when they had campaigned on doing just that. What's interesting is one of the main reasons some sources have apparently given for downgrading the inquiry. According to Dan Lett, "NDP government sources indicated that while a public inquiry would likely produce some valuable insight into the pandemic response, it would be difficult to control some of the collateral and volatile politics that would no doubt accompany public hearings... In other words, the inquiry would become a rallying point for a political movement that, while it is not growing in numbers, is most certainly growing in toxicity". In still other words, it would trigger the freedumb crowd, and increase their public presence, which could possibly put innocent people in harm's way. Sadly, I believe that this fear is entirely justified; whether this was the correct response, I don't know.

-  In other health-related news, the Manitoba government has increased the number of medical residencies by 17 in order to make a step towards addressing the physician shortage in the province. Every spot has already been filled.

- Jagmeet Singh has announced that the federal NDP will support the Liberals' budget once again. Whether this is a good move on their part depends on whether you're looking at tactics or strategy. In purely tactical terms, it might hurt the party in the next election, by delaying the opportunity to "throw the bums out", but in terms of long term strategy, it's essential for the nascent dental care program to have time to show its merits to the public and thus make it more politically risky for the Tories to kill it when they do take power in another year and a half.

- Yet another MP, Liberal Pam Damoff, has announced she's not running again in her riding of Oakville North-Burlington, citing the misogyny and threats that she has experienced. Can't say I blame her, especially since running for reelection would probably ramp up the awfulness, and at the same time is probably futile given that the Tories are likely to sweep most suburban GTA ridings this time round.

- The federal Tories are calling for Speaker Greg Fergus to resign after Pierre Poilievre, but not Justin Trudeau, was ejected from Parliament on Tuesday, saying that accusing someone of courting rightwing extremists is exactly the same as calling someone a "wacko". Not sure how to adjudicate that, but it's worth pointing out that even Konrad Yakabuski is worried about the fact that Poilievre is courting people like the convoy camp on the NB-NS border. As he points out, the fact that Poilievre is shown on a video shared by his own people exiting a trailer with a Diagalon flag on it is probably not accidental. I generally don't have much time for a neoliberal like Yakabuski, but he's right about this, and I'll take a neoliberal over a fascist any day.

- Another pro-Palestinian protest encampment has appeared, this one at the University of British Columbia. So far, things don't seem to have gotten out of hand, except maybe from the point of view of those who would normally use the athletic field they've taken over.

- Joe Biden is showing openness to relaxing federal laws on marijuana. It's the right thing to do, and probably also a wise move if he wants to get the youth vote.

- Police are investigating after an employee at a Winnipeg grocery store apparently punched a woman who he suspected of shoplifting. The store manager claims that this happened after the employee caught her taking meat on video, but even if this is true this generally isn't how you're supposed to handle such situations.

- Peter Nygard, recently convicted of four counts of sexual assault in Toronto, is suing a Vancouver woman for defamation; the suit was launched a month after he was charged by Winnipeg police with sexually assaulting her while she was here for a modelling job back in the 1990s (not to be confused with other pending charges against him in Montreal and New York). I'll say this much - the man's got chutzpah. But the fact that you can launch a defamation suit against one of your accusers while you're awaiting trial for the crimes they're accusing you of is a rather serious hole in the law.

- DARPA has rolled out a robotic tank. I can't see anything possibly going wrong with that, can you?